Indeed, until recently, Japan saw little censorship of artistic expression in BL works. Today, there are many audaciously erotic commercial BL. But, although the characters and storyline were new, it was obviously inspired by Captain Tsubasa, placing the work in the yaoi genre. It ran in Margaret, a mainstream weekly girls’ comic magazine, and was supposedly an original creation. But it was the manga artist Ozaki Minami, originally a yaoi author, who sparked the worldwide fever for Japanese BL with her manga Zetsuai 1989 (Absolute Love 1989). Thanks to the launch of BL magazines such as Be × Boy, BL became an established commercial genre. Authors who had originally found fame in dōjinshi secured offers to draw creative manga. Publishing houses realized the commercial value of yaoi in the early 1990s, launching dedicated BL magazines. Commercial BL emerged from such yaoi comics, evolving from tales of adolescent love to create more upbeat entertainment. Yaoi take characters from famous boys’ manga and anime and recast them in romantic situations. The earliest of these parodied the boys’ manga Captain Tsubasa. The late 1980s saw a sharp rise in derivative works known as yaoi, parody manga published in dōjinshi-amateur, self-published magazines. It was known for its strong aesthetic focused on beautiful youth, and featured culturally aware sections on literature, novels, art, and movies. Then, in 1978, a magazine dedicated to the genre was released: June. In the late 1970s, many magazines carried works featuring male-male relationships. It was a brave new world, where stories published in mass media reflected the values of young women born after the war. The manga depicted the same-sex love of the handsome young Gilbert, but also included vivid scenes of rape and incest, sparking a sensation.Īt the time, the monthly Bessatsu shōjo comic, featuring stories by Hagio and Takemiya, sold over a million copies an issue. Then, in 1976, Takemiya began her Kaze to ki no uta (The Poem of Wind and Trees) series, considered the pinnacle of the shōnen-ai genre.
#Define yaoi series#
The Heart of Thomas), a series set in a German boarding school. She followed this in 1974 with Tōma no shinzō (trans. It tells the exploits of the young-looking “vampanellas” (vampires) Edgar and Alan across the centuries, and is considered an immortal title in girls’ manga. Hagio Moto launched her series Pō no ichizoku (trans. In the autobiographical manga Shōnen no na wa Jirubēru (The Boy’s Name is Gilbert), Takemiya said she had aimed to spark a revolution through her girls’ manga.Ī 2019 rerelease of Takemiya’s Shōnen no na wa Jirubēru (The Boy’s Name is Gilbert) The creators consciously aimed to rock society through new forms of expression in manga. They were labeled the “Year 24 Group of Flowers,” a reference to their generation’s brilliant performance and their birth around 1949 (Showa 24). This realization offered an opportunity, and female readers fervently embraced these works depicting attachment and love between male characters.Ī group of female writers, including Takemiya Keiko and Hagio Moto, produced the first shōnen-ai (adolescent boys’ love) manga. With male protagonists, creators could depict more independent and proactive characters and include bold erotic narratives. Previously, girls’ manga featured female lead characters, inevitably limiting expression, due to women’s position in society. This spawned the adolescent boys’ love concept. Suddenly, female artists not much older than their audience began producing manga that they themselves wanted to read. But in the late 1960s, a new wave of female artists emerged, born after the war. Until the mid-1960s, most manga for girls were created by male artists. But what are the origins of BL in Japan, and how has the genre changed over time? The Revolution of Takemiya Keiko and Hagio Motoįujimoto believes that BL in the general sense first emerged as shōnen-ai (adolescent boys’ love) in girls’ manga in the 1970s, offering depictions of strong bonds and erotic encounters between adolescent boys. Each evolved along a unique path, depicting the complexities of social circumstances in which LGBT people find themselves. According to Fujimoto Yukari, a researcher of girls’ manga and gender issues, there is growing interest in BL culture in Thailand, China, Taiwan, Korea, and other Asian countries. Thai BL television dramas, available through video streaming services and satellite channels, have also gained a fan base in Japan.īoys’ love originated in Japan, spreading globally as one genre of manga and anime. 2gether, a love story of two male university students, won many fans, with an official YouTube channel with English subtitles-even topping Twitter’s global trends list. Boys’ love television dramas from Thailand have recently garnered a worldwide cult following.